


Under the Gun

by ishafel



Category: Regeneration - Pat Barker
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-08
Updated: 2011-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 12:43:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are no straight men in the trenches.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Gun

He falls asleep waiting, sitting with his back against the mud wall of the trench. Dreams of hunting, green fields and thin misting rain, air so clean it hurts to breathe. No scent today--they'll go home empty-handed. No joy. And then the shelling starts. His horse rears, slips, starts to fall backward. He has time to think about jumping clear, but his body seems to have frozen.

Someone touches his shoulder. "Sass?" He jerks awake, heart pounding.

It's Robert Graves, his pleasant, horsey face concerned. "Sass? You alright?"

Siegfried shakes his head, tries to think where he is, and why. "Robert?"

"Easy," Graves says. "You took a hell of a fall."

"My horse--?" Siegfried knows, even as he starts the question, that it isn't what he meant to ask. He came a cropper, all right, but not to hounds. "Robert? My men?"

"Easy, old fellow," Graves says again. "There's nothing you can do for them the medics can't."

He touches Siegfried's chin tilts his head up and shines a penlight in his eyes. "You don't look like you've got concussion," he says. "Perhaps it's shell-shock."

"There was a shell?" Siegfried asks. He's beginning to remember. "Robert? How many casualties?"

"A lot, anyway," Graves says bitterly. "You're lucky to be alive, Sass. You always were lucky that way."

"Fucking Germans," Siegfried says drowsily. "Wish I were a cavalry officer."

"Wake up, Sass," but Graves' voice is gentle. " You mustn't sleep again until the medics clear you. Anyway, this is no war for cavalry."

"'Xactly," Siegried agrees. "No war for me, either."

"No war for anyone," Graves says gravely--the pun makes Siegfried smile a little--"not even for Germans."

"No," Siegfried says, even though he's forgotten what they were talking about. "'S not. There any water?"

Graves produces his flask. "Better," he says. "Brandy."

Siegfried reaches for it with hands that are not entirely steady, fumbles out the stopper and tilts it toward his mouth. The brandy does nothing for the dryness of his throat or the pounding in his head, but he doesn't say so. No reason to hurt poor Robert's feelings. His eyes drift closed, and he forces them open. Graves leans over him, undoubtedly meaning only to take the flask. But for a moment their faces are so close Siegfried would only have to open his mouth to kiss him.

He wonders what Graves would say, innocent, steadfast Robert, who is a better soldier than he is a poet. He stops himself from finding out, but only barely. What they have between them now is better than the other could ever be.


End file.
